A. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to evaluation or analysis of plants for pests, infestations, abnormalities, and other conditions or characteristics. One specific example would be identification and/or quantification of soybean cyst nematode infestation.
B. Problems in the Art
Soybean cyst nematode (SCN) is one of the most significant problems for soybean producers. SCN infestations can cause 20 to 40% reduction in yield. This literally translates into billions of dollars a year in lost production.
The problem is difficult because it is many times simply too expensive to treat. For example, effective fumigation of large crop areas could cost more than the loss of value from reduced production caused by SCN. One attempt to avoid or diminish the potential or actual infestation is to rotate crops from year to year. However, crop rotation is not always successful and it is many times not desirable to the farmer.
Some soybean plants appear more resistant than other varieties to SCN. Therefore, substantial resources have been directed to breeding soybean varieties with SCN resistance to address the SCN problem.
In such plant breeding programs, breeders must carefully document heritage of soybean plants, grow them, and then evaluate their resistance to SCN. Plants exhibiting desirable SCN resistance are then bred with other varieties and their progeny are evaluated for SCN resistance. Currently, this is done by pulling selected plants from breeding plots or containers maintained in environmentally controlled chambers (for example after four weeks of growth), shaking off dirt, sand or other debris from the roots, placing them on an examination surface, and manually counting SCN cysts on the root system of that plant. This count is then converted to an SCN score or rating which is given to that bred variety of soybean, and which identifies its resistance to SCN to evaluate possible use of the plant for further breeding purposes or commercialization.
As can be appreciated, this manual SCN counting process is extremely slow, cumbersome and resource intensive. Substantial numbers of plants must be counted. The time and labor costs are substantial.
Accuracy is also an issue. Human error can be a problem. Inattention or fatigue over long periods of SCN counting are inevitable.
Further, accurate counting is difficult because of the small size of SCN. Cysts are the dead female bodies of the pest and are on the order of less than one millimeter in diameter. Moreover, particularly to the human eye, there is usually not a high distinction in color contrast between SCN and root material, nitrogen fixing nodules that form in soybean roots, or sand or other small particles. It simply may not be possible to expect highly accurate counts by the human eye.
Thus, there is a real need in the art for improvement with respect to identifying and/or quantifying SCN on soybeans, and in particular, a real need to make such identification and/or quantification more efficient and economical.
It would also be advantageous to efficiently and economically identify and/or quantify other pests, infestations, conditions, or characteristics with respect to soybean plants. Still further, it would be advantageous to efficiently and economically identify and/or quantify similar or analogous things or problems with other types of plants. Many other examples exist, including, but not limited to: Heterodera glycines (soybean cyst nematode) on common bean, vetch, lespedeza, lupine and a few other ‘weedy’ legumes; Heterodera trifolii on clover; Heterodera avenae on cereals (like oats); Heterodera schachtii on sugar beets, crucifers and spinach; and Globodera rostochiensis on tomato and eggplant. It would also be advantageous to identify and quantitate other pathogen infections, including but not limited to corn ear mold on corn, as a further example.
C. Objects, Features or Advantages of the Invention
It is therefore a principle object, feature, or advantage of the present invention to present an apparatus, method, and system that improves upon the state of the art.
Additional objects, features or advantages of the present invention relate to methods, apparatus, and systems useful in the identification and quantification of conditions or characteristics of plants which:    a. is relatively quick;    b. is economical;    c. provides at least approximately the same order of accuracy as the state of the art;    d. is less labor intensive;    e. promotes better identification and discrimination of desired targeted locations or characteristics of a plant; and/or    f. is amenable to automation, in whole or in part.
These and others objects, features, or advantages of the present invention will become more apparent with reference to the accompanying specification and claims.